


If She Were My Girl

by pettiot



Series: Professionals Timeline [10]
Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: Gen, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:27:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22241032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettiot/pseuds/pettiot
Summary: Set just before Take-Away.  Bodie's having a hard time staying objective in this undercover, with all the wrong instincts driving him.
Series: Professionals Timeline [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600894





	If She Were My Girl

**Author's Note:**

> There is a sexually active yet underaged girl central to the story. Note that Bodie's motivated by paternal/protective emotions, in his own way; there are no allusions towards forbidden desire.

  


She was sixteen, American, and frighteningly easy.

For once, Bodie felt less than inclined to chalk it up to his charm. His face itched, he desperately wanted a shave, swapping between two shirts for the last two weeks, and living in a single pair of trousers. He was also permanently cold, tired, uncomfortable, and had fallen back into chainsmoking with the ease of never having quit, simply to avoid the other options at hand, or rather, close to his chest; carrying a fair supply of marijuana did indeed tempt with the thought of the odd spliff, on occasion.

He was, he had told Cowley, too old to blend in seamlessly with a crowd of homeless youngsters squatting in an abandoned building.

'What do you suggest instead?'

'Dealer,' Doyle interjected. 'Got to look pathetic as hell at your age. Pot. Means they'll be more likely to pass on names. You know, “got anything harder, mate”, and when you say no, ask them who their usual is. Except don't ask them anything, because they'll lie or run. Wait til they tell you.'

'I'd never have known, thank you, ossifer.'

Doyle was taking this all too well, grinning. But well he should, with the cushy number he'd managed to swing. The more 'culturally sensitive of the pair' getting to shack up with the Asian bird, utter bullshite. Not that Bodie would say that to the old man's face.

'Least this time he's not going to blow his expenses on fancy clothes, sir.'

'Be raiding Doyle's wardrobe instead.'

'So long as you stay out of my drawers—'

It took two weeks of increasing hunger and despair to crack the surface trust of the transient mob, standing round their barrel drum fires at night, sharing fags, selling his stash, just the right balance of tightness and generosity. Not that _they_ seemed all that despairing, various addictions and lack of food asides: they had each other, Bodie noticed, lots of touching, sharing, petting, a social knot more complicated that he would've credited having not seen. The transients of his age had learned to wear a mightily protective isolation, based on rep and form, compared to these kids, who seemed to actually like each other. His despair was on their behalf, they all the unknowing. He'd spent exactly two weeks on the street at fourteen, before he'd worked out freedom wasn't everything. Half the time he had to bite back the urge to ask them why they weren't in school, even knowing, as intimately as he did, that there were times when running away seemed the only option.

So, he'd had violence as his buffer as a kid, fists to begin with, later his gun. But not drugs, he'd been able to say, with scorn. At least, not without medicinal requirement, speed to keep a watch after too long awake, coke before a fight, opiates as painkillers, oh, no, he'd never resorted to _drugs_. Witnessing the rise and fall of euphoria in this so-called crowd, he knew soon enough that it'd been near enough the same thing, their drugs, his violent dreams.

Lisa had been around for ten days when she approached him. Bodie hadn't seen the current boyfriend for a couple of days, and knew enough not to ask, not this soon.

'Hey. Kilroy. Got anything harder for me?'

There was no innuendo. Bodie felt bitterly sorry for her.

'Might. But not easily. What're you after?'

'Oh, I don't know.' Her gaze was wandering, smile lopsided. 'S'just, the other guy who's got the stuff, he's expensive. And I figured. Well. Least you're not Asian.'

'Sorry?'

'I haven't got any money. So you can screw me.'

Startled to his feet, Bodie nearly dropped the milk he'd filched from someone's front doorstep. Lisa shied away, as if more used to violence than surprise, so he grinned, and knew it for manic.

'Aw, pet. You remind me of my baby sister.'

She said, flatly, 'Into incest, are you? I can do my hair in pigtails.'

Christ. 'Look, let's just—' As fast as he was thinking, as he was used to thinking, a solution eluded him. He thrust out the milk bottle. 'Drink?'

'What's in it?'

'Milk?'

'I have some rum back in the building. S'getting dark anyway, come back in?'

He did not, he just did not want to be alone in a room with her.

It was odd, thinking of Cowley's pot stashed in the inside pocket of his jacket, of Cowley's sanction to deal to kids, to do — whatever it took. Bodie was generally at ease with the idea of _whatever it took_ , fight fire with fire, etcetera, at least when it was about trumping violence with violence.

But there were times when he couldn't help but think, most firefighters used _water_ , for fuck's sake.

Bodie inclined his head at the girl. Smiled. 'After you?'

She bumped into him as they walked, more aimlessly than by intent, and wormed an arm through his, a limb whose cold and thinness he could feel easily through his multiple layers.

'As if we were parading on a green instead of up the stairs to a derelict flat,' Lisa said, and smiled. 'You're not much of a gentleman, though. I heard you got form, Kilroy. When did you get out?'

He affected hurt, 'You hardly even know me, miss.'

'Oh. But you're all the same.'

Bodie looked over his shoulder, around, 'What, all seven of me?'

Lisa looked at him as though he'd gone mad, then suddenly snorted, an inelegant laugh, ending with rubbing her nose against his shoulder. Sniffing, as drippy as Doyle, bloody hell.

'The boys were right, you're _weird_. Yeah, all seven of you. One for each day of the week.'

'What a nightmare. Me old boss'd flip. Seven times the bastard.'

'I don't know. Seven times the form.' Wistful, 'At least you're warm.'

In the room where he had, by odd dint of relative age and the st range respect the kids offered to the property of those in their world, managed to keep a mattress and two blankets to himself, he settled her into the pile and pressed the milk back into her hands. 'Brandy?'

'No, rum, remember? I stashed in the stairwell. I had to hide it, Mickey drinks too much, and it's the only thing that keeps me warm.' She paused, and corrected, quietly, 'Mickey _drank_ too much. You think the cops picked him up, or he just—moved on?'

Bodie ignored that, and the voice that half-way wished it had been cops who picked up the kid, out of every other alternative he could imagine.

'You stay here? I'll get it.'

'It's in my special spot.'

'Oh, I'm good at special spots. Want to bet I'll find it?'

'Sure thing. Bet you a flask of rum.'

'You're on, Lise.'

She looked asleep when he got back, but the creaking floorboards startled her eyes open. She rolled onto her knees, already reaching to take her tops off, her readiness the most unerotic action he had seen. 'Here—'

Bodie stopped her before she could touch his crotch, her wrists spanned too easily by one hand. Silver pooled over her shoulders, the knobby spine, made a dark shadow of what little she had to show on her chest.

'Wh— Did I forget the pigtails? What did I do wrong? Don't— don't hit me.'

Wide-eyed, and suddenly terrified. She hadn't expected his speed. His roughness. He wasn't used to being delicate. He let her go, tried another smile, waved the rum around enticingly. He had to fight the urge to shout at her, to tell her to just bloody call her father, let his money fill whatever void it was she thought she had, with pretty clothes and fast cars and endless fit, fine personal trainers. But of course, he was not here for her salvation. Cowley's bloody angels they were not.

'Put your shirts back on?' he pleaded.

Her mystification apparent, she complied.

'Look, it's just. I haven't got anything here, sweets. No point paying up til you've seen the goods, yeah? And I don't handle the hard stuff all that often, it's – not likely I can get it straight away, right? You might be better off just forking up the cash to your usual guy.'

'But I don't like him. He's shady. I think he tried to bum me off with bad stuff last time. I felt really ill coming down.'

'An' I'm not shady? Lise, you hardly know me.'

A solemn headshake, and she grinned, unexpectedly, sharp and so impish in light and shadow it plucked at something entirely unstrung inside. The heartstrings, Bodie thought, bemused.

'I reckon,' she said, in a fair enough imitation of his accent, 'you might actually be a dandy young gentleman.'

'Just a pragmatist, love. Don't live very long in the rough without learning how not to get shafted. You should learn a thing or two...'

She was giggling, almost frantically. 'And you've lived so very, very, very, very, very, very looooong—'

'Enough of that. I'll have you know I'm only twenty two. All this hard living ruins the complexion.'

'Yeah, right, twenty two! Twenty _times_ two—'

'Oi—!'

'Hey, give me back my rum.'

' _My_ rum, missy. We had a bet. Not decrepit enough to forget that.'

'Your—oh, I suppose it is. So, can I have some of your rum?'

'Ask nicely, now.'

'Pwease?'

'Oh, God. Take it all. Anything to stop that pout.'

'You can't talk!' She snagged the flask, beaming. 'Mmm, that's good. Come sit next to me.'

When he was there, she surprised him with one kiss he could barely avoid, which fell onto his jawline by dint of reaching forward to tend a frantic itch, and her breath smelled all of alcohol fume and none of her. By the time he lay back again, she made herself a home against his side, sharp hips and ungentle legs, cold hands finding a way u nder his layers and resting, slack, against his belly.

'C'n I stay here tonight? If, you know, you're still in the mood to be all gentlemanly.'

'What about your boyfriend?'

'Mickey? He's gone.'

'Wasn't there another one? Heard you talking about him, the other night.'

'Yeah, him. He's a sweet kid. But just a kid, if you know what I mean.'

'Not really.'

'I mean he's no trouble.' She looked up at him through thick lashes, a strange, sweet smile on her lips. Streetlights and starlight, flickering and dubious, breath fogging with cold. She let her head slump against his chest. 'Not like you.'

'Yeah,' Bodie said, 'right.'

He let her sleep, each exhalation tickling his collarbone, her with her hands that never warmed. If this was how Doyle felt, day after day in a job whose ethics hardly ever aligned with his own, Bodie didn't know how the bastard did it.

Except, of course, he was going to do it too, wasn't he? For all his own ethic hardly ever bit, and proved razor-toothed when it did.

Sixteen, he thought, bloody and dazed. Spare him from ever having a daughter.

.

'They're never going to let us in there. Kilroy! God, I mean. Look at us! That's—!'

'Carlton Tower, yeah, I know. Come on!'

'You hold it,' Lisa said, stopping still. He stopped, better than letting her hand slip from his, or jerking her off her feet. Stubbornness shifted her expression a shade more towards juvenile, which was, oddly, something that made him smile.

'I'm holding it.' He squeezed her fingers, encouraging.

Predictably, the stubbornness wavered. 'How're we...I mean, how can you afford—'

'I do some work for a rich old bloke, every now and then. Paid up good this time. Plus I've got,' he pulled his other hand from his pocket, and flourished his card before palming it away; wouldn't do for her to see the name, one of many alias but certainly not the transient dealer Kilroy. 'A magic wand.'

Lisa squinted. 'What do you do for this rich old bloke? Procuring, I suppose?'

'Huh? What makes you—'

She fought free of his hand, hugged her arms across her skinny chest. 'Look, I know I'm hooked. Fine. Would do anything for it, crack, smack, God, if you had... I mean, I said I'd do you, right? Right? But I won't do some bloody old fart in his ivory tower who's got no idea what it's like, won't do _him_ for money or heroin or anything. I have my own standards, and you are not going to set me up like that. Some rich old fart...probably thinking I should be grateful to him for lifting me out the muck and into his bed, or something, something shit, the _fucking prick_. Least with you it's just a bloody _transaction_ , so don't, don't do this to me, don't stitch me up like before—'

'Lisa.' He grabbed her shoulders, held her, tight, for all the twisting, shook her against the hysteria. He was sweating: the number of times he'd seen this, diplomats' daughters, whatever, never had he been somewhere where he'd thought the girl hadn't half asked for it by taking to the drugs in the first place. He felt — sick. Who'd done it to her, first? The _fucking prick_ was denounced with so much venom, no way it was an anonymous old coot. Who'd fucked her over?

The rage, frustrated as it was, the sickness, at himself and situations in general, gave way to an inexplicable surge of protectiveness, of desire for something other than sex.

He crushed her against his chest, tucked his chin into her hair, kissed the oily brow. Glared vile imprecations at the interested passers-by gawking, and stroked her hunched shoulders straight.

'Aw, Lisa, c'mon. Everyone's staring. Lisa. I swear to you. Look at my eyes, sweetie. Here. Chin up. I swear to you. I'm not setting you up. It's you and me. Just you and me. I got a windfall, I want to share it with you. That's it. That's all. Lisa. Please.'

She looked at him, at last, bottom lip caught between her teeth.

'Trust me,' Bodie said. 'Please, trust me.'

Doyle had it wrong, he decided. None of this Interrogating Streetbrats 101. Ask them everything, because they only wanted to give. But if you offered anything, that was when the suspicion flared. He had never felt dirtier in his life.

'Where were you last night?' Lisa asked. 'I came to your bed, but you weren't there. I fell asleep waiting for you.'

'Visiting a friend.'

'This rich old man, was it?'

'No, another friend.'

'So you've got the stuff, do you? It's been for ever, Kilroy. I want it—'

'It's been barely a week.' For a moment the madness of Doyle as heroin contact nearly sprang free, sniggers and a hysteria to practically match Lisa's own. He shouldn't have gone to see him last night, shouldn't have, when the contact eased nothing at all. Doyle, for once, was treating it just like another job. But Doyle, 'culturally sensitive' as he was, wasn't the one sleeping with a sixteen year old. Even if it had only been _sleeping_ , so far.

'I haven't got any. Please, Lisa. Just wanted to share something nice with you. Can you trust me?'

Her lip sprang free, the frown easing, the stiffness against him surrendered. 'They're still not going to let us in there dressed like this.'

'Course they are, pet. I asked you to trust me, didn't I?' He grinned.

'Oh yeah? Are you that much of a smooth talker?'

'Nope. I'm an American actor, see, researching a role, and you're my local guide.'

Lisa stared at him blankly.

'Was that...supposed to be an American accent?'

'Wasn't any good, huh? Maybe I should try Texan. Whaddya reckon?'

'Oh, my God,' she said, and dissolved into scornful laughter, 'You are such a _dick_.'

They passed through the front desk with only a few double-takes. He didn't try the accent, in the end, the card enough, though he did notice the discreet phone call to confirm its validity, no report of recent theft; CI5's credit was always good.

Yet they looked at Lisa, who was examining a large stand of flowers, and looked at him. He wondered what they'd do if he leaned close, conspiratorial, whispered, 'My daughter,' with all the lie and cover-up that implied; for all their distaste when he said nothing to appease their guilt, not one of them was going to stop him.

Which meant they wouldn't stop the others, either, would they, the fucking hypocrites.

'My dad used to bring me places like this,' Lisa said, in the lift. 'He travelled a lot. S'how I ended up in England.'

She had looked at herself in the mirror, Bodie noted, then turned her back, set his shoulders between herself and any reflective surfaces.

'You miss him?'

'Like fuck, no,' she spat. 'He's a... a _fascist._ '

'Oh, well.' At least that hadn't been the horror disclosure he was expecting. 'There's worse things than fascists.'

'What? Like what!'

'I dunno. Idealists.'

'What's wrong with idealists?'

'They make you believe.'

'You really are weird, Kilroy.'

Bodie let her into the room with a flourish, heard and cherished her sigh, of relief at the emptiness of the room or wonder at the plushness, all the time not knowing why it meant so much to him.

'You want the shower first?'

She spun, graceful for the first time he could remember, and curtseyed in her battered jeans. 'Join me, sir knight?'

'Uh. Forgot my fags. Just going to pop down and pick some up. You want anything?'

'Condoms?' Her voice came muffled through her teeshirts, already hoisted over her head, her brastraps knotted at the back, where the hooks had since dropped off.

Sheepish in retreat, he suppressed the flinch until he closed the door.

Bodie wished he could come up with a good reason for bringing her here. For wanting to see her clean, her hair fluffed out, for feeding her face, which he was going to do with copious amounts of room service as soon as he got himself together; for wanting to wash her clothes and — hold her, like he'd been holding her these last couple of nights, against his side and just listen to her breathe. He had no kid sister, child, or young love long since lost for Lisa to recall to him. He had simply no reason at all to care.

Irrational, he said to himself, handing over change for the cigarettes he'd lost the taste for. Mad. Off the deep end. Threatening the whole op. If she twigged, if she said something, if she thought he was a cop. Cops did shit like this, trying to win their trust. Fucking her would at least be one way she'd be _sure_ he wasn't a cop. Getting her crack would be another way. He didn't want to do either, thinking frantically to find another way.

Just tell her the truth, maybe?

Mickey had been the first lead, scant mention of an Asian dealer — but Mickey trusted no one, definitely not butch ol' Kilroy, despite his time in prison and his begrudgingly on-sold foils. Then there had been Lisa, at Mickey's side, and Bodie had watched her inject herself with the deftness of an adept, watched her roll onto the mattress after in the room the kids all bunked down in, as good as unconscious, all weeks before saying a word to her beyond his usual 'morning', politeness habitual as their use and near as impossible to eradicate. When Mickey disappeared, well. There was only Lisa left, the lead to the dealer, who got so careless with these kids because they were kids; only her, because none of the others did heroin.

He should have expected the scene when he got back, opened the door, to find her pinkly clean and starkers on the bed, heels tucked under her bum, hands in her lap.

He looked at her, the shout ripping out of him, ripping him hollow, before he could stop it.

'Sixteen, my fucking arse you're sixteen!'

Her arms went round fledgling breasts, with those pale nipples still turned inwards, like a pre-pubescent child's, scrambling into the protection of pillows, anger and shame suffusing her face, bloody and wary, hairless, absolutely hairless but for the halo of fresh-washed gold around her head.

'What the hell are you doing? Put your fucking clothes back on!' The filthy jeans were on the floor, teeshirts mired with layers of sweat and stink, but she scrambled for them anyway. 'No,' he said, suddenly calm, but feeling as if he'd run a mile to claim it. 'No. God, I'm sorry. Put on a robe, here. Here. Something clean. And sit— Not on the bed, love, on the sofa, on the chair. Anywhere but the bed. Jesus, kid. _Jesus._ '

'You scared me!'

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.'

'I've done it before,' she said, defiance rising out of nowhere. She let the robe fall open, her knees wide where she sat.

He wasn't sure what would be worse, looking away as if – there was something wrong with it, with her, with him, that he couldn't just meet her eyes.

He met her eyes. 'Have you?'

'Yeah, a couple of times. Sort of, I mean, I wasn't really, I wasn't, paying attention or anything. So it's not about my age, you see?' The defiance wanted to ignite, almost did, the shame and anger flaring. 'So what's wrong with _you_ , then? You just got out, and there's nothing wrong with me! Got a taste for something else in prison? Caught something you don't want to tell me?'

'Yeah, I caught a fucking conscience. How old _are_ — No, I don't want to know.'

'Listen, Kilroy, I really do need it—'

'You're not getting it from me. Any of it.'

Lisa sniffed, looked away, angrily. 'What else did you bring me here for?'

He nearly laughed. 'Would you believe, pizza?'

'What?'

'Lise,' he took the bed then, the very edge of it, and reached for her hand. Well, why not, it was just her hand. 'Lise, do you want to get me put away again? I don't want to go back to prison. Especially not for this.'

There was a flicker of something canny in her expression, the twist of her lip. 'Well, I wouldn't have to tell anyone about it if you kept me happy.'

Inexplicably, tears stung at his eyes, the back of his throat, at the goddamned hopelessness of bringing anyone out of a pit they'd chosen to dig themselves. Maybe that was what made Doyle spring like a leaky teapot, given the chance. The helplessness, the impotence. Wasn't often that Bodie set himself up to feel this powerless. He was particular careful about that.

'Did you tell someone about Mickey, did you?'

'No. No! Mickey was – he was talking to some cop, last I saw him. Curly hair. A fat cop. It was right out in the market, where all the Chinese have their stalls. You know, I've seen you there too, pinching peaches from that skinny guy. Then he never showed again. Mickey, I mean.'

Talking with a known cop in front of a whole group of strangers who likely knew the dealer. Bodie wanted to shout some sense into these kids. They were going to get themselves picked off one by one this way, the amount of departments all trying to hone in on the fucking Triad—

'Who are you calling?'

Bodie had lifted the phone without even realising. Not that Doyle could help him here.

'Room service.'

'Really?' A trace of the child again, in Lisa's unwary grin. 'You're not going to kick me out?'

'I said I was bringing you here for pizza, didn't I?'

'You know what I really want?'

'Aw, Lise, don't start this again—'

'A burger,' she said, defiantly. 'A good, fat, American-style burger.'

'With mustard too, I suppose.'

'With mustard.' She chewed her lip. 'Can I —'

'What, not _pickles_ as well.'

'No, I mean. If you're not kicking me out. Can I sleep with you tonight? Not. Not anything. You don't have to get me any stuff, you never wanted to anyway. Don't even think you knew anyone who could, really. I just. I want. It's been good these last couple of nights.'

Cuddling, he didn't say. She wanted to bloody cuddle.

He was probably going to hell anyway.

'All right.'

'But you can shower first,' she said, and grinned.

He put the phone down, and fixed her with his sharpest stare.

'You're to promise me something, too, sweetheart. Ok?'

'I can't promise if I don't know what.' She frowned, 'I'm not coming off the stuff, not for you, not for anyone. I _like_ it, ok?'

'I'm not judging,' he said, easily. 'Who am I to judge, anyway? No, that's not it.'

'What, then?'

'Who's your dealer?'

'I don't know his name. It's not like we're friends. He used to come for Mickey, but now I just see him at the market sometimes, and I give him this nod, and he catches me up afterwards.'

'So next time you're going to him, you tell me first. Bring me along. I don't care what you're doing, Lise, but I'm not letting him rip you off. Or palm off the bad stuff to you, the stuff that could get you sick instead of high, just cos you're young, poor and desperate. You tell me, you bring me along. Ok?'

'So's this where I ask if you're in the drugs squad, Julie?'

'Sorry?'

'Well, are you?'

'I told you. You remind me of my kid sister.'

'Bullshit.'

'Aw, come on. How much weed have I sold your friends, pet? Would an officer do that?'

'I don't know.'

'Would an officer,' he cupped her chin, drew close, and kissed her as gently as he could.

When he released her, Lisa shook herself, catlike, as if every hair had stood on end.

'No, I suppose a cop wouldn't.' Her eyes, which he had grown accustomed to being either dull or desperate, canny as that cat, half-wild with it, had softened. Civilised by a kiss. The tears were back again, stinging at him and requiring forceful suppression. 'Kilroy, I want—'

He pulled her arms from around his neck, tucked her hands back into her lap, and tugged the gape of her robe closed.

'It's all right. It's really all right. Give it a few years, ok? But for now it was just a kiss. That's all. Friends, all right?'

'You are so, so, so fucking weird,' she, incredulous.

'Now. Pizza.'

'Burger, you senile old fart,' Lisa tackled him before he could reach the phone, 'or did you forget already?'

Later, after the shivering started, Bodie woke up and held her close, knowing exactly what it meant.

'Maybe,' she said into the dark, through chattering teeth, 'maybe I just won't go to him any more. Not just because he's expensive. But just. Altogether stop.'

There were some things that went beyond even the job. Some means he could not accept for the ends. Something leapt at the words, flickering affirmation that wanted to shout on her behalf, that took all his cool to say it calmly, hand unrelenting in its path along the girl's spine.

'It's your choice, sweetheart. You don't want to take it any more, then don't.'

'It's hard. It's so good.'

'Lots of things are.'

'I won't,' she was fierce, cold hand a fist bouncing off his chest. 'I won't. Not any more.' She hiccuped, harsh. 'Oh. Scuse. Though that reminds me. Thanks for tonight. Thanks...for the burger.'

'Just don't puke it up on me, kay? Not that you ate hardly any of it.'

'I won't.' Juddering, a spasm, her very breath sounding like it was trying to choke her. 'Ah, God help me, I _won't_.'

.

But that was what he got, Bodie thought, for trusting the word of addicts and streetkids.

He closed her eyes for her, pulled the blanket over her stillness, just another form amongst the dead-log sickening sleepers in a derelict apartment block that not even the cops cared enough about to clear out. Then he walked out into the biting cold, the miserable, traffic-buzz quiet, and placed a call from a public phone. Probably shouldn't have touched her, or the needle, but it'd probably be easier getting a lone needle to HQ for testing than calling in an ambulance, terrifying half the regulars around here away with the inevitable presence of police, scrounging for afters. No, they had to keep the ordinaries away, while the Drugs Squad detectives were already doing their too-obvious snooping, getting kids killed unnecessarily—

The gasp came on him without any warning, a huge, shuddering intake of cold night air, as if the blackness wanted to drown him. One forceful gulp, and that was all it took to consign Lisa the not-sixteen year old American to the deep dark places, where he kept everything else that should have lived but didn't, all because of his hand, and who, seriously, who in their right bloody mind would want to keep a count of that anyway? In their bloody. Right. Mind.

Right.

Then he filched another bottle of milk from the front door of a place he knew didn't have a dog, inside or out, drank his liquid breakfast, and made his way back to the market by dawn.

'Tough luck, hey?' Doyle said later, over the barrow, one hand lost in his hair. Slow day, or so Bodie thought, the rain having sent most people indoors. There was a steady drip down the back of his collar, not that he could do anything about it even if he got annoyed. 'After grooming her for a week.'

Bodie wondered if he should bother to throw a punch over Doyle's choice of words, then decided it, as most things in this world, purely mischance.

He shrugged. 'There's a boy. Her other _other_ boyfriend, he's of the transient mob. Goes home for a while, fucks off again, in and out, you know? Might show his face in a week or two, I hope. He was young, but she'd mentioned he came along with her a couple of times, knew the dealer by sight too. He used to think she was some kind of hero for what she did, by the sounds of it. Have to move quick with him, when he shows. Hope it's not too long. I'm getting fucking sick of squatting.'

'Was she?'

'What?'

'A hero.'

'Fuck, Doyle,' Bodie said, and made a face. 'You know addicts.'

  



End file.
